Food, Justice, and Land - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 261

that potential for productivity increases—or decreases—after policy implementa-
tion is not inherently associated with any particular type of land policy. In different
places and in varying conditions, we have seen that productivity increases through
conventional land reform, in others via leasehold or rental arrangement, still in
others through group stewardship contracts. The conditions of existing agrarian
structures play as much role in shaping the impact of policy upon land and labor
productivity as the land policy itself.
8. Livelihood-enhancing . A pro-poor land policy contributes to building diverse
and sustainable complex of livelihoods. Land policies are usually thought of as some-
thing that has to do with agricultural or forestry development. Although to a large
extent this is correct, greater understanding of the complex of livelihoods of the
rural poor demonstrate the extent to which farm, on-farm, and off-farm sources of
livelihood are, to varying extents, mixed from one household to the next, from one
country to the next (Scoones 2009). Hence, it is important to view land as part of this
diverse portfolio of livelihood strategies of the rural poor. “ Too farm-centered agrar-
ian reform ” may prove to be problematic, counterproductive and nonviable in many
cotemporary rural settings today.
These eight aspects of pro-poor land policy are necessarily complementary
to each other. In the real world, however, it may not always be straightforward to
achieve this set, especially in places where there are contradictions between two or
more aspects. Take, for example, a case in which a contested land is limited in quan-
tity and the land claim makers—all legitimate on the bases of the key aspects dis-
cussed here—exceed the available land for redistribution. In the face of conflicting
normative principles, which dominates? Would it be class-based, ethnicity-based,
gender-based social justice, or some productivity consideration? These are not easy
choices at the level of normative theory. Governments and international develop-
ment agencies have made choices that, in retrospect, seem contrary to pro-poor
interests, but the same can be said of many progressive, even left-wing, rural social
movements.
Dynamics of Reform
As a critical conversation with the conventional land reform (restricted to redistribu-
tion of large private estates) and the dominant mainstream discourse around so-called
“pro-poor land policy” today—and equipped by the normative features of a truly
pro-poor land policy discussed earlier— discussion of trajectories of resultant social
change is warranted.1 Historically, based on various country experiences, there are
at least four broad trajectories of agrarian change resulting from implementation of
land policies: redistribution, distribution, non(re)distribution, and (re)concentration
(Borras and Franco 2010).